


That Feeling You Get

by Dandy



Category: Xiaolin Showdown (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 15:49:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/663758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dandy/pseuds/Dandy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robo-Jack is broken. Jack fixes him. Somewhere in between, they have a heart-to-oil-pump.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Feeling You Get

_Optics online. Receiving video input._

RoboJack groaned as light flooded into his carefully engineered eyes. Being unconscious had been nice and relaxing. In contrast, the light hurt. He tried to move his arm up to shield them, but found that he couldn’t.

“Don’t even try it, buster.”

His own face was suddenly looming over him, shading his eyes well enough for him to actually see who it was. He let out another groan while the original – but not better or more awesome - Jack Spicer launched into explanations. And launched into screwing something.

“Your motor functions in everything but your face are offline, so don’t even bother trying anything funny.” Jack shook the screwdriver at him. “You’re not getting the best of me today.”

Robojack didn’t answer right away; he was still trying to comprehend where he was and what was going on. “Yeah, yeah,” he finally muttered, wishing he could throw in a dismissive hand gesture for effect and instead going for a bored eye roll. “I won’t run off while you’re… You’re repairing me?”

“If I was going to scrap you, you wouldn’t be awake right now.”

“Oh please, I wouldn’t put it past us to do something that mean.” It wasn’t true, but he wasn’t about to take anything from Jack without at least a verbal fight, even if that thing was repairs.

“I _oughtta_ scrap you!” There was that screwdriver again. “You’ve been nothing but a huge pain in the butt since I first charged your battery. And what do you have to show for it? Getting beat up by a bunch of stupid monks.”

“That’s rich, coming from _you_ ,” RoboJack snapped back. “What have _you_ accomplished lately, oh great creator?”

“Plenty!”

“Name _one_ thing!”

“Don’t make me disengage your verbal response systems!”

“Hah! You act like _I’m_ pathetic, you can’t even win an argument against yourself!”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up! Just remember that you’re modeled after me; we’re exactly the same person!”

“But I’m still _better_.”

“Then why are _you_ the one that had to be dragged back to the lab, insides on the outside and headless, huh?”

RoboJack grumbled something ugly under his breath but didn’t answer. Jack made an equally ugly noise of contempt and went back to silently working on something around RoboJack’s abdomen.

For a several minutes, there was only the tick of the clock on the wall and the sound of Jack working. But no Jack Spicer, organic or otherwise, could stay quiet for long, and soon the silence was broken.

“Why _are_ you repairing me?”

“You mean why am I bothering with you traitorous hunk of scrap metal after your latest attempt to bring me down? I keep asking myself that.”

“Yes, I know we’re asking ourself, so how about we tell ourself the answer.”

Jack shrugged. “You’re me; you tell us.”

RoboJack scowled, but eventually ventured a guess. “Because you don’t leave behind anything you invented if it can be saved.”

A small smile appeared on Jack’s face. “Not even the really stupid ones.”

“Hey, I am you, remember?”

“You’re _based_ off me, but no one can beat the original, baby! Jack Spicer, _best_ evil boy genius, never outdone by some stupid robot.”

RoboJack rolled his eyes yet again. “And here I thought we were having a moment.”

“With you? No way.”

More silence stretched between them, shorter this time. Jack had just closed a hatch on RoboJack when the patient spoke again.

“Actually, I… have a question. About my programming.”

“Yeah? Shoot.”

“It’s about my AI. The… the part of it that lets me… feel things.”

“Like feeling how pathetic you are?”

“No, like feeling satisfaction that I’ll never be as pathetic as you.”

“Oh right, the part that’s lying to itself. Got it.”

RoboJack scowled, but kept going. “There’s this other… feeling. That I get. Sometimes.”

Jack stopped working to look into his face. The mirror images stared at each other.

“What kind of feeling?” Jack finally asked.

“I dunno, it’s weird… Not like happiness at all. Kind of like sadness but… different. Not like crying sad but more just kind of…“

“Empty,” said Jack softly.

“Yeah, that’s the word.”

Jack was suddenly very intently focused on his work. “And do you only feel it when you’re alone?”

“Yeah!” RoboJack’s eyes widened. A programmed expression of surprise. A fabricated feeling of camaraderie. “You’ve felt it, too.”

“You can feel everything I can,” was all Jack said in response.

“What do I do to make it stop?”

Jack hesitated, instruments poised over a damaged place in RoboJack’s leg. Finally, he bent back over the area. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t? Lame.” RoboJack pouted.

“Hey, you don’t even know what it _is_ , geez! Maybe I should just leave your legs like this.” The threat was empty. Jack kept working.

“Well, what is it, then?”

Jack sighed in agitation. “Loneliness. Google it.”

RoboJack did, in the space of a nanosecond; at least Jack hadn’t disconnected him from the wireless network. “Oh,” was all he said in the end.

“Bet you feel dumb,” said Jack, and RoboJack’s scowl returned in full force.

Minutes of silence stretched between them again, longer than any before it. Jack was done before it was broken, wordlessly turning his motor functions back on. RoboJack leapt from the table, grinning as he tested out the use of his newly repaired legs. RoboJack was back, baby!

“I can get rid of it, if you want me to,” said Jack suddenly, before RoboJack could declare so to the world.

“Get rid of _what_ now?”

“The programming for loneliness. You wouldn’t have to feel it anymore.”

Now it was RoboJack’s turn to hesitate, looking himself straight in the organic eye. “You can _do_ that?”

“Duh.” Jack shrugged. “No problem.”

The machine processed this. The feeling itself was incredibly debilitating; he found it hard to concentrate on anything else when it reared its ugly head. It made him do dumb things. Made him go mad.

“You feel it too?” he asked again, and Jack knew he couldn’t evade this time.

“Yeah.”

“Then I’ll keep it.”

Jack was confused. RoboJack gave him a haughty grin.

“It makes me more human, right? Besides, unlike _some_ people, I can actually handle it.”

Jack spluttered out an objection, which RoboJack waved off, relishing the act of doing so.

“I know how to get rid of it. Be around other people? No sweat. I have no idea why _you_ can’t figure that much out.”

He started to walk nonchalantly up the stairs, as though he actually had to do such a thing to leave. “Then again, I guess it can’t be helped, huh? Look, not even you can stand to be around you. Hahaha! Smell ya later, loser!”

Creator watched his creation go, silence again draping itself over the scene. The lab seemed to still, stretching big and cold and empty.

Jack turned away from the stairs and back to a damaged Jackbot.

“Yeah. I know.”


End file.
